Abstract for 13th Gathering in Biosemiotics: "Uexküll in translation: "Darwin and the English Morality""

A few days ago I was notified that the Advisory Board of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies has accepted the abstract "Uexküll in translation: "Darwin and the English Morality"" for an oral presentation at this summer's Gathering in Biosemiotics (Castiglioncello, Italy, June 4-8). Jonathan Beever and myself are the authors or the paper, which will be presented by me.

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UEXKÜLL IN TRANSLATION: ”DARWIN AND THE ENGLISH MORALITY”

Tønnessen, Morten¹ and Beever, Jonathan² (to be presented by Morten Tønnessen)

¹ Department of Health Studies, University of Stavanger (Norway)

² Department of Philosophy and Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University (USA)

This presentation will include excerpts from “Darwin and the English Morality”, an English translation of an essay written by Jakob von Uexküll and published in its original form as “Darwin und die englische Moral“ in 1917 (Deutsche Rundschau 173: 215-242). The English translation, which has been conducted by Morten Tønnessen supported by English language editing by Jonathan Beever, is forthcoming in Biosemiotics along with a framing essay entitled ““Darwin und die englische Moral”: The Moral Consequences of Uexküll’s Umwelt Theory”, co-authored by Jonathan Beever and Morten Tønnessen.

Uexküll’s essay concerns the relation between German and English morality, framed by an application of his biological theory to the human cultural context. Uexküll’s 1917 critique of what he calls the “English morality”, written during World War I, points the contemporary reader toward important implications of the translation of descriptive scientific models to normative ethical theories. A key figure motivating biosemiotics, Uexküll presents here a darker side: one where his Umwelt theory seems to motivate a bio-cultural hierarchy of value and worth, where some human beings are worth more than others precisely because of the constraints of their Umwelten. The first English translation of this essay gives scholars access to Uexküll’s lines of thought, historical context, and normative interpretations. It is particularly pertinent for contemporary attempts to develop a biosemiotic ethics based, among other things, on the Umwelt theory.

Uexküll’s critique of Darwin refers to the latter’s treatment of the origin of morality in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). “The source of morality”, writes Uexküll, “is, according to Darwin, precisely this feeling of sympathy, in its relation to the susceptibility for praise and blame, which initially extends only to members of one’s own tribe, then in time, after the merger of different tribes to a people, to all fellow countrymen.” He cites Darwin’s words: “Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions”. In a central passage, Uexküll then observes:

It is not, as Darwin holds, an artificial barrier that is an impediment to the extension of moral consideration to all peoples and to the lower animals. Rather, the ethics that is founded on praise and blame is itself the barrier for the extension to fellow creatures whose praise and criticism one neither hears nor takes any note of.